FRESH COLD BERSERK
I am pantless and shirtless and beflabbed between unwashed sheets in the drudgery of the vague morning sheen. Circadian rhythms have improved inside the cocoon of current carnivorous jaunt und gymnasium bent. I am warmed but I am late, for date imperativ.
Personal Training with Fate today. Timetabled public transport is nigh.
Sigh.
I wallow under blinding linen skin as the kookaburras chase away magpies who chase away sparrows who chase away worms who chase away the local White baby boomers concerned about their investments that their privileged children do not even live in because Oops! Didn't Know That Was a Thing.
I am a vagabond, a vagrant - indelibly, incredibly stained by the only true, virtuous skin I’ve ever known.
Pillow Hiltonopolous..
Euroclassic Pedestaline of my misshapen, undernourished heart.
socket squelch
Expelled, I am free of the shallowness, free to outfox the day, unless I am dragged - back to that Sherwood, Castle Peak - by a morbid, bestial power-shriek that is what I cannot shake, that is always present, socks made of coal and of potato the solitary gift the annual Sack Do affords mine man-cloak that I always seem to wear, unlawful identity.
This^.
Shower, exfoliation. This is my contemplation nation as I hippy-skippy to the nearest train station. Glower, abomination. The Sydney train is late.
Shun.
I live Out West - in beauteous exile from suburban defilement - but I am summat-quite-thing fond of this Tiggr mess of a system. It glistens ridicurrous. Boing, boing, herp!
IT
‘Saemson - Pummel O’Dreadlockson? Is that you?’
Jayzus, mate. I just.
Cannot.
Shun.
These^.
Old Mate eats a puffy, fluffy creamed-corn pie atop a cream cake atop a muffin top: ‘I could really use a big spork right about now, Pummel, old pal.’
Old Mate’s done it now. I am beskinned in names of his and Fate’s previous choosing (as in destiny, not my PT. Sigh.) We used to choose life together before that fateful summer’s storm come and torn our bits into even shardier nano-style, pictorial pieces. Pillow invited Old Mate and The Normies to the carnival but I only received a late, token, second-hand invitation.
Glint, asunder.
Assumed Jealousy and Brokenness rather than standard annoyance at weird, unnecessary rudeness.
Shit. The Remains of Personal Training Day. Missed calls.
3 Missed Calls: Fate (PT - not destiny. Sigh)
‘You probably haven't heard. About The One We Called Pillow? You missed our graduation reunion dewaxing anti-hazing excursion - your ears must be so cloggo right now, champ? But I digress, deliberately, to erase Pillow, momentarily, while speaking of her, so as to maintain blissful selfhood, future-proofing my past, erasing it slowly, being present…’
Old Mate’s talk, familiar yet distant, to thine, unmedicated me without asking, corralled me into an enclosure that this Zuckerman’s famous durable pig would endure willingly, and only then was This Old Pig forced to endure the unendurable, vague elliptical chaotic-prosaic-mosaic of Charlotte’s Exit-Web.
Pillow, ya gawn. Can deal. Yawn.
Traffic noises. Morning bougie footpath clops.
Pillowww.
‘She is locked in dread - grieved and shocked and schlocked with a medical condition.’
Pillowwww. Vulnerabllllloooow. Like youuu - finally. And will understand. The. Shape. Of. Water. Or. You. Or acute, non-whimsical non-merperson pain.
‘The Probbo Past Remains Groundhoggy for my Decisionny Baddiness too, not to worry’ said Old Mate. ‘Ego repetition yields power to previous reputation.’
Again? Oh yeah, haunting ay bro...
Fixed alternate-pronoun beleaguers my non-actual man-cloak, the boyhood, so problematic and tight and rigid, like the overstarched briefs of a 1950s-style cis-het American office worker who blames his cis-het-female life partner for life’s every fresh ellipses-analepsis outsourcery.
Misericordia. Mise-en-scene. Man and his dirty bed.
The Case of the Lost Comfort.
Pillllooooooowwwww. Noooo.
Grew. Apart. Grew. Up. Too. Soon. Despite. Extended. CHILDHOOD.
‘Oh, O’Dreadlock?’
Relapse. Solitary. Apartment. Midnight. Oil. Lyrics. Foundational insomnia caused by…
Raycie...head-whispery...plaintive...whimsical...itis.
I used to conch in this stream.
‘Oi, Dreddy, bringing tree-change nostalgia World War Two?’
Rewound tape hallucination from pornographic trauma: Old Mate’s face.
Pure cream-corn sans pastry-ness and human parts. Regals me. IT! I forget my dignity forever - no resume, no relationships, no ability to reflect and learn.
And plough backwards.
Back towards Castle Peak again. Towards the fresh, cold void of climactic berserkitude.
Except, I baulk at the Sisyphus Hill.
I hear a bus blistering, engine-like, industrially, recalling ham sandwiches in modest, pre-Howard-Era Castle Peak underbelly tuckshops.
Split. Mango. Dingo. Infinite adjectiv.
‘Sorry Mister Poltergiest, you're one pus-ridden blisterhand I will neither pick nor shake.’
The summer climate steadied to comfortable, light breeze hairdryer and I could not help gazing backwards, a blissful alternative, moment-sojourn.
‘Bit harsh? But - Pillow - I figured you'd want to know - she almost croaked. Of lung cancer - that spread, from toe cancer. Remember all Dem Durries? Dose Bevvies? Dat Pepsi Max Diet? Da Fat-Free muffins baked on her Sickies? Our volatile figures in the light that are now only shadows to box only when constantly mentioned. Mate?’
‘Manchild - please,’ I said with unclenched, skyward palms hiding the caramel-latte melanin product knuckle-glaze. ‘You don't even have to mention Mauritius, but kindly Shove off, Old Mate.’
‘Suf-fer!’ said a gleeful student in Adidas singlet, Kappa pants, bent-legged in one Nike shoe and one New Balance shoe, all hanging out the bus window by a rope of school ties.
At least I’m not the only one.
I board - sit down, humble but brittle, on the M54 bus, which humdrums to the shopping centre that you’ll know if you’re in the private-know. It stands upright and forthright amidst mild, bristle-bustle sprawl that bears my birthname. I contemplate Old Mate contemplating public human rights battles in private. Because he gets it now.
Understood
IT
Mr Unplough, that name again, somehow, though I never inexorably uttered...
IT
Before
‘God, so wish I was Chinese - anything but This^!’ I volunteer, as I once did with my time, with children who were not my own, but were my own self-childhood erasure - except this was not sneaky-cheese metaphor, it was aloud, to the wrinkly bronze baby boomer bus driver’s knowing, inviting, lolling grin in the mirror of the empty metal carriage.
His old Golden Retriever doggo hiss-whined like bad brakes. Only then did I notice the lovely mutt’s frosty froth next to its head on the rubber-lino-whatever floor.
‘The next stop is Real Hart Lane. It’ll be busy, chap. The festival is on. In Australia, best be avoiding the cool quick-stickery you might not understand. Be not offended in my upending of ya - yeah, boi?’
The bus driver toothed a giant custard apple, gripped with vigour, spat out the juicy, coloured skin into a scrunched, brown paper bag as I somehow read my latest text by unverified osmosis while staring at him, sweating everywhere but especially in my unexposed pits and on the hair on my temples:
‘I can no longer train you, Sameson. Must cancel indefinitely. My cat’s grandy is unwell and needs my full, undivided professional attention...forever! Rgds, F.’
Thank you
And Fffff
I...
‘*Saemson. Soz! :)’
...T
Aftershock
Entire culture is
Alternate, deflection? Pontificating procrastinator...matez?
Uncle Leo Un-Hello-ers?!
Agony Nana Pure, bigoted microaggression or Impure, Papa indignant macroaggression?!
Let thou art be in-between and
left lean, cringing
culturally;
Togethie
Recognis-epiph
Siesta-steeled commute
Heart-graffiti
About the author
Frayston Bond Withergoon-Leatherskin is a washed-up hack with no idea about how literature or democracy works, so since November 2016 has habitualised dog-whistled right-wing YTs for his own mental degradation and the detriment of society, at least according to fear-jacked, overworked people - ay, B? See? That's what friends are fooor. Frayston grew up in the Hills and south-west Sydney and eats Corn Flakes with milk just like 20th century health advertisements recommend.
